


Changing Colours

by Kalira



Category: Captain Harlock
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Flowers, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Soulmates, The Arcadia (Tochiro) Has Opinions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:55:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22328935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kalira/pseuds/Kalira
Summary: Yama was prepared for his world to change when he boarded the Arcadia, but . . . not like this. Harlock thought his world was beyond changing any further.A world now flooded with colour for both of them.
Relationships: Harlock/Yama | Logan
Comments: 13
Kudos: 50
Collections: Valentine's Spectacular (2020)





	Changing Colours

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my Valentine's Spectacular this year, and inspired a few weeks ago as my friend [Mikkimouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikkimouse) and I rewatched the movie together (again), specifically - of course - during the scene where Yama joins the crew.

Harlock stood impassively above the crowded bay, prepared to watch as another batch of new potential recruits failed to come anywhere close to the ideals that bound his crew together to one purpose.

Arcadia dropped the first of the handful who had actually made it up to them, and Yattaran moved on to the second, who was visibly trembling with nerves in anticipation.

Yattaran enjoyed this, Harlock thought. He certainly enjoyed taking charge of new recruits.

The second potential was dropped as well, and Tochiro creaked and complained in the back of Harlock’s mind. He sighed agreement. The last planet they had stopped on briefly they had taken on no recruits either. They didn’t _need_ more hands, exactly - Tochiro could have flown with no one but Miime and Harlock on board - but. . .

Harlock’s brows rose as the third potential panicked and fell before he could even _try_ to stutter out a response to the question. He sighed. It wasn’t looking good on this planet either, really. Tochiro paused just long enough to be a pointed comment in itself before folding away the spur the man had been standing upon.

Harlock looked to the last potential, who stood almost rock steady, despite the precarious perch he was balanced on and the winds rushing past the open bay doors. He wasn’t looking at Yattaran, surprisingly - he usually monopolised the attention of any potential recruits - but looking over the bay, glancing fleetingly up at Harlock time and again.

The next time he shifted to look, even as Yattaran came to a stop in front of him, Harlock wondered what he would do and met his eyes, and-

Harlock almost staggered, the breath knocked from his lungs, as _colour_ flooded his world, spiralling outwards from the vivid eyes he could barely even _see_ at this distance. The sky and dirt beyond the potential were _brilliant_ , the power armour worn by many of the crew _gleamed_ in bright shades Harlock had never seen, the-

The potential was falling, without words, no doubt _because_ of their connection. “ _No!_ ” Harlock barked, reaching out as though _he_ could catch the man.

Reacting instantly, Kei darted forwards and snatched him as he plummeted, and Harlock’s heart lurched as he watched her pull him up and let him fall onto the deck. “Captain?” Kei asked, turning towards him. Harlock gasped shallowly, looking at the man sprawled on the Arcadia’s deck. Tochiro, he realised, was making flustered sounds at him, even as the bay doors closed slowly.

“ _Colours._ ” Harlock managed, a thin mutter, steadying himself. Arcadia went silent for a few heartbeats, and then Tochiro began to remind him, delightedly and _smugly_ , of their many conversations about soulmates.

“Captain?” Yattaran echoed Kei.

The potential recruit pushed himself up, fingers clawing at the deck, and looked up to Harlock. “Freedom.” he gasped out, and Harlock’s eye widened. He couldn’t but be . . . impressed - he wasn’t sure _he_ could muster that much sense just now.

Yattaran laughed, clapping the man on the back - lightly enough not to send him sprawling back to the deck plates, at least - before striding off. Kei hauled him up by the back of his collar, laughing herself as her helmet receded. “Captain always knows.” she said, and Harlock shook his head slightly as he took one last, lingering look at the man - at his _soulmate_ \- then turned with a flare of his cape and. . .

Tochiro scolded him for _running away_ , but Harlock ignored him, hurrying deeper into the ship, striding comfortably down the dark corridors. _Away_ from the bay, away from. . .

Away from his _soulmate_ , though he couldn’t get away from the _colours_ he had never seen before, now everywhere around him even in the dark surroundings of his ship.

* * *

As the small mover-shuttle spun up from the range of the collapsing planet and the great worm trying to snatch them out of the air, Yama found his attention straying more towards the Captain beside him. Harlock was focused on the displays before him as he flew, their path surprisingly smooth, and it allowed Yama a bit more of a chance to study the man, as he had not been able to on board the ship even the few times he had been close. And. . . And in _full colour_.

Harlock’s rich brown, shaggy hair fell forwards and hid his eyepatch. Yama’s eyes strayed to the brass and other bright points on Harlock’s sleeves, his belts, snug around his long, slender legs. The rich red of his cape’s high collar offset his pale face, dirty with soot from diving into the volcanic vent Yama had been dangling in. Without a suit. And hauling Yama up, and saving him despite knowing. . .

Yama’s gaze darted to his gun, the gun he had held on Harlock’s back, and any words he might have tried to string together, to voice, died in his throat. He couldn’t-

It was still his mission to. . .

“Yama?”

Yama froze, throat tight and eyes darting up to meet Harlock’s one, only to find it hidden behind his dark, ragged fringe. Yama _so_ wished to see it, _really_ see it, as their locked gazes that had unlocked a world of colour had been from so far. . . He had no idea what Harlock’s eye _looked_ like, though of course he knew what colour - _colours_ \- he had been able to see before that moment. He yearned for a proper look, even a glimpse.

Yama struggled to catch a breath. “Captain?” he returned, a little unsteady.

Harlock tensed, twitching slightly as he turned towards Yama. “I believe,” he paused, then smiled slightly, “you have your freedom aboard the Arcadia, as do we all. Make your own choices.”

The words took a moment to sink in, Yama was so startled to hear them. He realised as his chest tightened how much he had wished to hear . . . something else.

Harlock rose, head dipping and gaze, it seemed, falling to. . .

To the gun he was offering back to Yama. He swallowed.

“Whatever you decide. It is your choice . . . and I will wait to see.” Harlock said again, and then he was _gone_ , leaving Yama alone aboard the small shuttle. He held the gun in both hands, throat tight and stomach twisting with nausea.

* * *

Harlock tilted his glass, watching the ruby liquid ripple and climb up the sides before he raised it to his lips again.

“You have made your choice. Would you make the same decision if he was not the holder of your colours?” Miime asked, and Harlock snorted around his mouthful of brandy.

He gestured with his glass - he had explained his choices with Yama to her, but perhaps he should not have been surprised at this. Every Niflung he had met had been intrigued by the shifting colours of human soulmates.

“It is impossible to say how a choice might fall, were everything different.” Harlock said softly, with a melancholy ripple of memory. His best friend’s voice calling his name, breathless with delight and excitement; the day Tochiro had found his soulmate, and the day that Harlock had discovered what his colour had been, for he had always refused to share it before - the pearly, inhuman green of Niflung eyes, and the only human to find their soulmate among them.

Or the only one to admit it; Tochiro would never have hidden such a thing - not on his own and not if given orders.

Arcadia groaned softly around him and Harlock smiled slightly. Tochiro had always rather disdained orders, when they contradicted his heart or his mind. It had led him to needle Harlock at times, encouraging him to think more, to choose his own path and make his own mind.

“I think I would.” Harlock said, meeting Miime’s eyes, that curious colour. He tried to imagine it being the sole colour in his world, and shook his head, thoughts circling back to warm amber-brown eyes. “Every person’s choices should be theirs, and he is beginning to think for himself, to go beyond what he has been told and taught. He deserves the chance to do so.”

“Even if it means your soul’s mate is the one to bring your death and end this quest?” Miime asked peaceably.

Harlock brought his glass up. “. . .perhaps someone should. I could be at peace with it being him laying me to rest at last.” he said softly, and drank deeply of his brandy.

* * *

Yama was a little amazed he got his full speech out - or he thought he had, the words tumbling across his tongue with little thought put to them; Harlock’s face was transported with hope and Yama was vaguely aware of Kei’s own shocked expression nearby - his attention locked on Harlock’s face.

He’d not been so _close_ before, not. . . And the light of the small containment unit and the bright little _living plant_ cast a green-tinted glow on Harlock’s scarred face. A tear dripped down his cheek as he reached out, fingers brushing Yama’s hand through their gloves.

Yama was breathless and all but trembling as he met Harlock’s gaze. It was a rich green-tinted gold-brown, and Yama had _known_ the colours of Harlock’s eye, his soulmate’s colours, but to see them like this . . . to meet his eye like this, in a world suffused with colour, their hands both clasping a tiny but powerful symbol of hope and life and _future_. . .

“Harlock. . .” Yama said breathlessly, lost.

Harlock squeezed his hand and rose, just as Yama realised that more of the crew had caught up with them, including Yattaran. They all stared at the flower, and listened to Harlock’s orders, which jarred Yama enough to string words together again.

Harlock looking to Yama as he spoke didn’t help, and Yama still couldn’t tear his gaze away from Harlock’s eye - his world might be filled with colours now, but that they had all been sparked from _there_ , from his soulmate’s gaze. . .

Yama was breathless as they ran to enact their plan, Arcadia stirring back to life around them and the little flower once more safe in the containment unit he held. And it was, now, nothing to do with fear and everything to do with wonder - for life, and hope, and the offered promise of what could be love held within his soulmate’s brilliant gaze.

* * *

Harlock glanced aside as Tori-san flapped his wings, and found Yama just clearing the top of the stairs and approaching. “Yama.”

“Captain.” Yama smiled slightly, dipping his head. “I’ve been working in the greenhouse bay.”

Harlock lifted his head a little more. “How are things progressing?” he asked, voice soft with hope. They had left Earth to recover herself - it might take centuries more, but she _was_ \- but . . . after . . . Harlock had been reminded that Yama had a background in botany and the science of supporting plant life. Tochiro had eagerly begun making changes almost before Harlock had even had the thought to ask it himself, and barely days after the final battle, when Yama had still been unsteady with the pain of his wound, had excitedly guided Harlock and Yama down to what was now the greenhouse bay.

“Rather well.” Yama smiled, his face soft and happy. Harlock’s chest tightened and his heart fluttered. He was so handsome and . . . sweet when he looked like this. “You haven’t been down in some time,” he said slowly, and Harlock pressed his lips together, not responding - he hadn’t wanted to press Yama in what was now, most clearly, _his_ space, “so I thought to bring you some sign of it here.”

Harlock sat up a little, then stilled as Yama held out a bright circlet of greenery and flowers in half a dozen colours. Harlock’s breath caught. “What. . .”

“It’s a flower crown.” Yama said, and ducked his head, clearing his throat. “You. . . You needn’t _wear_ it, but-”

Harlock beckoned, and Yama grinned, coming closer and raising it higher. Harlock had actually simply wanted him to approach, but he had no objections to wearing the ornament, and sat still save for a tiny dip of his head for an invitation, marvelling a little, as Yama put it on his head.

“I thought. . .” Yama licked his lips, stepping back slowly. His fingertips barely brushed Harlock’s cheek as his hands dropped. “I thought you might . . . enjoy . . . _like_ . . . all the pretty _colours_. Since, ah . . . I’ve got more of a variety of flowers and other plants growing there, now.”

“Thank you.” Harlock said softly. “I was already . . . deeply impressed with how much you have done in so short a time, this. . .”

“Thank you. Captain.” Yama said, and bowed slightly. He met Harlock’s gaze for a long moment, then turned and walked away, and Harlock lifted a hand, but let it drop without speaking or trying to call Yama back, watching him disappear from sight. Harlock sighed, reaching up to gently catch a soft leaf between his fingers, looking out over the ship before him.

He jumped when Arcadia clanked loudly, and scowled at Tochiro.

Yes, colours, there were a handful of brightly coloured flowers in the crown Yama had brought him - and must have woven together himself, of course, Harlock thought - but that-

Harlock leapt from his throne and bolted after Yama. Tochiro was right - and might be wrong. It _had_ been a very blatant show of the fact that they _both knew_ they could now see colours, presented to him hopefully but without pressure by Yama - and Harlock would not, just now, have felt much able to protest his own intelligence, despite Tochiro’s rather angry insistence that he was not a stupid man.

He _felt_. . .

“Yes, yes, I’m _going_ after him.” Harlock muttered, his heart racing even faster than the beat of his boots on the deck plates as Arcadia shifting doors open ahead of him, keeping his path easy as he headed straight down to the greenhouse bay. Surely that was where Yama could be found - it seemed he was there more often than anywhere else, at any time, since the first tiny sprouts had been settled there and encouraged to grow strong.

The door opened, and Yama came into view, lifting his head and turning towards it with a startled expression as Harlock ran right into the greenhouse bay and came to a stop before him. The door closed quietly behind him and Arcadia clicked encouragingly, the lights warming a little in the bay.

“. . .Captain?” Yama questioned, and Harlock strode forwards, closing the last distance between them and reaching up. Yama didn’t pull away, and Harlock clasped his hand.

“Colours.” Harlock said, and Yama stilled, his face losing a bit of its own warm colour. “I _do_ love the pretty colours you brought me.” he said, and Yama’s face suffused with pink. Harlock smiled awkwardly. “Thank you for the flowers. Thank you for,” he paused, “so much I cannot possibly offer you-”

“Harlock.” Yama squeezed his hand, moving closer still, until their bodies were almost in contact. “It,” he paused, “did not change my actions, really, but it changed _me_ . . . that you held my colours.” He swallowed visibly, and Harlock squeezed his hand, gloved thumb rubbing over the back soothingly. “I _wanted_ to speak to you, but I couldn’t quite. . .”

“Nor I, obviously.” Harlock said wryly, and Yama relaxed a little again, laughing. Harlock’s heart warmed. “Yama,” he squeezed Yama’s hand again, meeting his beautiful amber-golden brown gaze, “what do you want?”

Yama smiled slightly, tilting his head. “Whatever I want? So simple?” he asked, and Harlock blinked, then shifted one shoulder, nodding. Yama tightened his grip on Harlock’s hand in return, then dropped it, stepping forwards against Harlock’s chest, one hand sliding up over Harlock’s shoulder to settle behind his neck, inside the collar of his cape. Eye closed, he leaned up for a soft press of a kiss, warm and soft and dizzying.

Harlock’s arms wound around Yama’s waist without his conscious direction as he tipped his head and returned the warm caress. It had been decades since he had kissed anyone and he could not remember it ever being so _sweet_.

Arcadia clicked rapidly around them, fading into a soft whirring sound. The bay was warm and smelled of earth and water and growing life in the deep breath Harlock drew as they parted. He opened his eye to meet Yama’s gaze once more, forcing himself to loosen his grip.

“I have had time to think on what I want, Harlock.” Yama said, and Harlock nodded, not sure he was capable of words himself yet. Yama raised his hand and cupped Harlock’s cheek with a light touch. “Have you?”

Harlock didn’t hesitate. He lifted Yama’s hand and kissed the slightly dirty palm. “I knew what I wanted even before you made your choice and walked your own path . . . I only thought I could never have it.”

Yama gave him a look that was both painful and warm, wrapping an arm around his shoulders and drawing him close. “What do you want, Harlock?” he asked, resting their brows together.

Harlock closed his eye, relaxing into the half-embrace and nudging his nose against Yama’s. “You.” he returned softly.

Yama’s mouth was warm as he teased Harlock into another gentle kiss, and his free hand came up to rest on Harlock’s hip. Harlock tightened his embrace again, one hand sliding up Yama’s back, and was only vaguely aware of Arcadia humming all around them and the muted metallic click of the already-closed door.

“You have me, Harlock. Always.” Yama said against his mouth between kisses, catching Harlock’s lower lip between his own for a moment. “All that I want is right here with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> . . .I keep winding up with Harlock hauling ass across the Arcadia to Yama for various reasons, usually a soulmate and/or love declaration. Silly man. XD


End file.
